The impossibility of loving: blanchot,community, sexual difference

This paper aims to clarify Blanchot's notion of community and his practice of communism through, first, an account of his involvement in the Events of May 1968 and, second, an exploration of The Unavowable Community, in which Blanchot reads a short novel by Marguerite Duras, which recounts the tropisms of a brief relationship between a young woman and a homosexual man. As I show, Blanchot's affirmation of what he calls “the impossibility of loving”, which emerges from his reading of Duras, is linked to what he calls “worklessness [désoeuvrement]”; that is, the active process of loosening or undoing that contests any attempt to establish a community around a shared essence. I will claim that it is by attending to the relationship to worklessness that one might attend to what Blanchot calls the “spaces of freedom” that open around us: to those happenings which are not enclosed by prevailing determinations of the social space. A further aim of this paper is to address the concerns of Jacques Derrida, for whom Blanchot's writings on community betray what he calls in Politics of Friendship a “schematic of filiation”, in which the relation to the brother is the privileged model for the relation to the Other. I also provide an account of Blanchot's negotiation of Levinas's account of the relationship between ethics and eros as it is presented in Totality and Infinity.     

The cut sleeve 1 revisited: A brief ethnographic interview with a male homosexual in mainland China

This paper focuses on a brief interview with a self‐disclosed male homosexual from a Western province in mainland China. While others have reported on homosexuality in China, the sources of information have generally been nonreactive (letters and clinical case notes). To the author's knowledge, this is the first documented face‐to‐face interview with a Chinese male homosexual to reach the Western professional press. Segments chosen for focus include the self‐perceptions of the individual, his sexual orientation and liaisons, and the manner in which he negotiates his alternate lifestyle in a cultural system largely negative to homosexuality in any form. While this example is obviously not representative of homosexuals in China, it does briefly illustrate the kinds of experiences that confront a male homosexual in the post‐Mao Zedong era. Adaptive strategies by this individual also indicate how the expression of a sexual orientation at variance from the norm can be sustained, even in a seemingly closed system.     

Coming out: Lesbians' disclosures to parents

This research explores homosexual coming out as an interpersonal process involving disclosure of a deviant identity to selected audiences. More specifically, this paper focuses on disclosure of a lesbian identity to parents. Based on in-depth interviews with 53 self-identified homosexual women, the factors which are most strongly associated with disclosure to parents are self-perception of the possession of stereotypical lesbian characteristics and level of education for both respondents and parents. Future researchers should focus on the temporal ordering of variables associated with the disclosure of a deviant identity and should also examine risk-lessening factors in other areas of lesbians' lives, such as the workplace and within heterosexual friendship networks.     

Gay fathers

Data collected by depth interviews indicate that gay fathers proceed through an identifiable career which often terminates in the two identities of gay and father being compatible and noncontradictory. Integration of the two identities is achieved through active participation over time in both the gay world and the father role, and through integrative (positive, identity-affirming) sanctions of both identities by the fathers' heterosexual and homosexual intimates. Integration, however, is not inevitable. Its achievement depends upon the extent of the man's disclosure of both identities and the degree of his participation in both the gay world and in fathering.     

Home of the Brave,Frantz Fanon and cultural pluralism

Abstract

This article examines Mark Robson's Home of the Brave (1949, USA), a Hollywood social problem drama about anti-black racism, and the brief but vivid response to the film presented in Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks (1952). Fanon enables a rethinking of some of the film's most central assumptions and the discourses upon which the story relies. At the same time, Fanon's response conveys information about his own biography and his perspectives on cultural representation generally. The article examines the film as a document that reveals competing claims about anti-black racism and, through Fanon's commentary, revisits the relationship between cultural pluralism and racial ideologies in the mid-20th century USA. The article explores the nature of Fanon's anti-racist commentary on the film as a form of 'cultural studies' that offers transnational historical insight and simultaneously provides ways of re-examining the national specificity of race thinking.     

Young,Effeminate, and Strange: Early Photographic Portraiture of Truman Capote

How did the young Truman Capote, a homosexual writer who closeted neither his person nor his writing, succeed amidst the homophobia and censorship of 1948? This paper examines how Capote vaulted himself into celebrity through a campaign of photographic self-representation that climaxed with the spectacular notoriety of the author photo of his first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms. Capote's photographic portraits allowed him both to be recognized as gay and to be seen and discussed as nonspecifically queer–as effeminate, childish, and strange–deviations less threatening than the bald assertion of sexual difference, although associated with homosexuality through the nexus of nonnormative masculinity. Capote thus both deflected and attracted attention to the homosexual contents of his work and person to best serve his career. His media manipulations offer a case study of how gay men could strategically harness the simultaneous currents of fascination and repulsion with nonnormative masculinity in postwar America.     

The Hidden Hitler and the Hidden Reader: Review of The Hidden Hitler by Lother Machtan

Machtan proposes that Hitler, before entering politics, was a practicing homosexual during his early adulthood. Later it became necessary for him to destroy evidence of this stage of his career. The difficulties of satisfactorily substantiating such a claim are discussed, with special reference to 19th-century gay figures. Machtan's book is criticized for not providing adequate analysis of social and institutional forces, as well as his assumption that such personal uncovering is intrinsically informative. Some speculations regarding the recurrent interest in the homosexuality of famous men is offered.     

Affective Mediation of Homophobic Reactions to Homosexual Males

Abstract

In a test of the assumed dissimilarity/revulsion (AD/R) model of homophobia, 58 heterosexual males who differed in homophobia participated in an acquaintanceship exercise with a male partner who self-disclosed, midway through the exercise, that his sexual orientation was homosexual or heterosexual. As predicted by the AD/R model, (1) participants high in homophobia became less emotionally invested in their self-disclosures after learning of a homosexual partner's sexual orientation, whereas those low in homophobia disclosed with more emotion over time; (2) participants high in homophobia interacting with a homosexual partner reported more negative affect stemming from the acquaintanceship exercise, evaluated their partner less favorably and indicated greater desired and actual social distancing from their partner than did participants in the remaining three conditions; and (3) the relatively negative behavioral/evaluative responses of participants high in homophobia to homosexual (but not heterosexual) partners were mediated by their affective reactions to the acquaintanceship exercise.     

STRATEGIC DISCLOSURE OF MEANINGFUL INFORMATION TO RIVAL

I study a model of strategic disclosure of a private signal to a rival in the presence of a payoff externality. In the model, two agents forecast the unknown true state of a future period. Specifically, the quality of the signal is also private information. Hence, which quality of signal is revealed for which incentive is the main question of interest. I show that, even when disclosure is costly, the revealing equilibrium, where an agent voluntarily reveals his signal, can exist and it should be a monotone equilibrium. Asymmetry between the penalty for an incorrect forecast and the reward for a correct forecast is a necessary condition for the existence of this revealing equilibrium. If the penalty is larger than the reward, the unique revealing equilibrium is a separating equilibrium, where only the low quality signal is disclosed in order to induce the rival's imitation. On the other hand, if the reward is much larger than the penalty, the unique revealing equilibrium is a pooling equilibrium, where the signal is always revealed in order to induce the rival's deviation. If the reward is not much larger than the penalty, no revealing equilibrium is robust to a costly disclosure. (JEL D81, D82)     

Editor's Choice: An Interview with Hans Joas

The interview explores multiple aspects of social theory, most of them directly related to Joas's theory and others to symbolic interactionism and Goffman. The first part delves into Joas's theory in three respects. First, a clarifying note on a common misunderstanding about his book The Creativity of Action. Second, a clarification on the scope of his theoretical endeavor, and third, a look into his coming books to have a better grasp of the course that his theory is taking. The second part is dedicated to symbolic interactionism and Goffman. Firstly, Joas's opinion about the theoretical relationship between symbolic interactionism and macrosociology is emphasized, secondly, his opinion about the pertinence of locating Goffman within symbolic interactionism is stated, and thirdly, a brief commentary about the relationship between Joas's theory and Goffman's is introduced.     

Melancholia,Ambivalent Presence and the Cost of Gender Commentary on Paper by Meg Jay

I would like to engage three aspects of Jay's argument: first, I want to suggest that there is an important distinction to be made between melancholia and depression, and that Butler's melancholy gender depends on this distinction, which emphasizes the social and political dimensions of melancholia. Second, Jay diagnoses the theory of melancholy gender with a troubling ambivalence; I contend that this ambivalence is central to the logic of Butler's argument, and to the processes of melancholia and gendered identification, and that this ambivalence is also purposefully manifest in Freud's text. Third, Jay's piece makes a call for conceptual disarticulation in the register of foreclosure as it relates to prohibited homosexual object choice. This desire for disarticulation and anxiety about homosexual undecidability leads to the collapse of gender, sex and sexual orientation, and the result of this collapse is an ambiguous subject who emerges as reheterosexualized and normatively gendered.     

Correlates of negative attitudes toward gay men: Sexism,male role norms,and male sexuality

Research has shown that heterosexual men are more negative toward gay men than women are on measures of attitudes toward homosexual behaviour and homosexual persons (Kite & Whitley, 1996). Gender differences in attitudes toward gay men's civil rights are less clear. No empirical studies, however, have investigated these findings with a scale that measures specifically these three attitudinal subcomponents. This study was a preliminary test of a scale that measured these subcomponents. In addition, this study investigated the relationship between these subcomponents and other attitudinal measures: hostile sexism, male toughness, and attitudes toward male sexuality. Results revealed that attitudes toward homosexual behaviour and homosexual persons comprised one factor: affective reactions toward gay men. Results showed that men were more negative on affective reactions than women were. No gender differences were revealed on attitudes toward civil rights. I found significant correlations between affective reactions, hostile sexism, male toughness, and male sexuality. I discuss these findings in relation to traditional gender role beliefs and make suggestions for future research.     

WikiLeaks: Between disclosure and whistle‐blowing in digital times

The 2010 WikiLeaks' disclosures of U.S. war logs were the first megaleaks to shake the world of international diplomacy and political elites. Since then, more leaks followed, from the Snowden to the Panama Papers. As this phenomenon continues to evolve, a significant body of scholarly work has analysed the emergence, the struggle, and the history of WikiLeaks .This article aims to provide a cross disciplinary overview of the research that has explored the rise and the legacy of the disclosure platform and whistle‐blowing website WikiLeaks. It identifies four scholarship approaches to research focusing on Julian Assange's platform in order to understand its impact on various aspects of the media and of public life. The approaches considered range from the effect WikiLeaks has had on traditional journalism to the platform's challenge to power in the realm of the balance between openness and secrecy in domestic and international politics; further scholarships use WikiLeaks as a case study to understand the relationship between media and social movements and to study the platform's ethics and the legal consequences of its operations. The impact of WikiLeaks's revelations still poses relevant questions the media, politics, and regulators must address in such a pivotal time that sees a change in news consumption and an increasingly bitter debate between online privacy and transparency. The conclusion reflects upon current development of what the author calls “new digital culture of disclosure.” Future research should explore questions about the opportunities, challenges, and obstacles for this emerging culture of disclosure. What are the socio‐political‐economic conditions that have enabled this new culture? Are these leaks becoming a renewed example of democratic accountability? Is this culture of disclosure replacing public interest journalism in times of crisis?     

Undergraduate Students' Reactions to Analogue Male Disclosure of Sexual Abuse

ABSTRACT

Anecdotal evidence indicates that male sexual abuse survivors fail to disclose for fear of others' reactions. This study investigated undergraduates' reactions toward a hypothetical male survivor's disclosure whose abuse occurred at age 5, 15 or 25, with a male or female offender. When age at incident was higher, the survivor was seen as less masculine, more responsible for his abuse, and the male sex role and rape myths were more strongly applied to him. Generally, women's reactions were more positive than men's. Less positive reactions were associated with disclosing to other men, abuse occurring at an older age, and a female offender.     

Changing methods of disclosure. Literature review of disclosure to children with terminal illnesses,including HIV

More than 30 years after the first discovery of the deadly HIV virus, and in the wake of increased knowledge of transmission, treatment and behavioral intervention development, parents are still faced with the difficult task of whether, when and how to inform their child about her or his HIV status. Except for some general ethical considerations, there are no national or international guidelines available for handling HIV status disclosure to a child by parents and health professionals. Most studies on disclosure address the problem of stigma and the barriers to disclosure of HIV-positive status by adults to their sexual partners, caretakers, families and communities, but very few studies focus on disclosure to HIV-positive children. The majority of the studies that address disclosure to children limit themselves to stipulating reasons for barriers to such disclosure instead of the skills and knowledge necessary for effective disclosure to a child. Increasing availability of therapy for HIV across the world presses the issue of disclosure to the child. Even so, disclosure for children who are HIV-positive due to vertical transmission continues to be very difficult. There is a lack of interventions that consider guidelines for healthcare professionals, parents or persons involved with taking care of HIV-positive children. These interventions should be designed in an understanding manner towards the culture where they might be implemented and be as appropriate in the view of integrating different family structures and the child's development.     

A Review of: “Sex and Ethics: Essays on Sexuality,Virtue, and the Good Life. Edited by Raja Halwani.”

Early family backgrounds of gay fathers compared to a matched sample of gay nonfathers were investigated, with particular emphasis on parent‐son relationships. It was hypothesized that, contrary to predictions based on Freudian theory, there would be no difference in homosexual fathers' and nonfathers' perceptions of their early family life and relationships with their mothers and fathers. Questionnaires from 30 gay fathers and 30 gay nonfathers derived from a larger nationwide study of 285 homosexual men from Dignity chapters in the Northeastern, Midwestern, Southern, Southwestern, and Western United States were analyzed using analysis of variance. No difference was found between the gay fathers' and gay nonfathers' perceptions of their parents' acceptance of them. Both groups perceived their mothers to be significantly more accepting than .their fathers. Both groups also reported growing up in intact homes where heterosexual relationships were modeled for them, pleasant memories existed, and marital discord was not commonplace. These results support the growing body of research which questions the Freudian‐based concept of a causal relationship between early familial relationship patterns and sexual orientation.     

Sexual Revictimization in Adult Women: Examining Factors Associated with Their Childhood and Adulthood Experiences

Using data collected from a sample of adult women (n = 234), this study examined the relationship between the experience and disclosure of childhood sexual abuse and subsequent adult sexual violence. Multivariate analyses revealed that physical force during the childhood sexual abuse experience was significant in both children's decisions to disclose as well as in adult revictimization experiences. Furthermore, childhood disclosures were significantly associated with adulthood disclosures about revictimization, but only when there was no action following the childhood disclosure. The implications for enhancing training and education about understanding and responding to children and women's disclosures about sexual violence are discussed.     

Becoming a Parent and Relationship Satisfaction: A Longitudinal Dyadic Perspective

This study investigated the extent to which women's and men's relationship satisfaction within couples is similarly or differently affected by becoming a parent and the extent to which changes in work hours and hours spent on household labor affect a person's own and his or her spouse's relationship satisfaction across the transition to parenthood. The authors conducted longitudinal dyadic analyses, based on 12 waves of the British Household Panel Study (BHPS). They selected 689 couples who remained together during the period of observation and who were employed, childless, and living with their partner (of which 28% married) at the first moment of observation. The results revealed that relationship satisfaction of both members in a couple changed in tandem. Although work hours and household labor had some effect on people's own and their spouse's relationship satisfaction, these factors did not account for the U‐shaped relationship satisfaction pattern associated with the transition to parenthood.     

FAMILY ADJUSTMENT FOLLOWING DISCLOSURE OF HOMOSEXUALITY BY A MEMBER: THEMES DISCERNED IN NARRATIVE ACCOUNTS

Disclosure of homosexuality by a family member frequently creates a crisis within the family. Previous research has focused primarily on families' response to this initial crisis and how they cope with and transform initial negative reactions. Little attention has been given to how families respond to disclosure over time and to how families integrate a gay or lesbian family member--and his or her relationships--once they have come to accept his or her homosexuality. Using a narrative approach and interviewing whole families, this project explores these questions. We present 12 themes we found consistently recurring in family members' narratives. We discuss the relationship between these themes and current models in the literature within the context of heterosexism and suggest that this approach may represent a first step in developing a model of successful adaptation subsequent to disclosure.     

What was that Secret? Framing Forced Disclosures from Teen Mothers

Although previous research has examined the micropractices of therapeutic interaction, few studies have focused on the expression of power in group therapy. This ethnographic study examines a therapeutic program for teen mothers to explore how self‐disclosure occurs, focusing on the therapist's techniques for soliciting disclosure and subsequent responses. These techniques include the therapist's own disclosures, presentation of commands, and revelation of information, which then evoke the disclosure. Individuals respond with immediate compliance, delayed compliance, or sustained resistance. Although the therapist attempts to mask this imbalance, her strategies reinforce the power differences between herself and the teen mothers. The interactions observed here illustrate how clients may find therapeutic environments less about psychological unburdening and healing and more about the negotiation of power in an institutional setting. A more effective therapy might focus on disclosure of clients' successes rather than primarily on the revelation of discrediting information.